Accomplished Alumni: Mikayla Wright

UNC Asheville Alumna is awarded Buncombe County Beginning Teacher of the Year

By UNC Asheville

January 19^th, 2024

On Mondays, Mikayla Wright '22 leads MathCounts with her Erwin Middle School students. Then she is the logistics coordinator for Community Nights, where students can come with their families to eat dinner and get tutoring. On Tuesdays, she helps tutor students after school.

She’s on the Positive Behavior Intervention Committee, helping coordinate rewards for students who are doing well and putting on an “Erwin Experience” field day to help get kids excited about coming to school. And she is helping organize a Junior Bulldogs experience for Erwin students at her alma mater, UNC Asheville.

And this is only her second year teaching full-time. Is it any surprise she is Buncombe County’s Beginning Teacher of the Year? Maybe not to anyone else, but Wright said she was quite surprised.

“Surprised and very confused, I had no idea. I didn't even know about the award. I didn't even realize that I was nominated for it at all,” Wright said. “Especially after only teaching for a year. I was like, wow. I guess I'm doing something right?”

Wright has always loved math, but she didn’t know she wanted to be a teacher until she interviewed her former math teacher for a college assignment at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem.

“Just talking to her, asking the questions they gave us and listening to her talk about her job and what she was doing,” Wright said. “I think this is what I want to do.”

Photo courtesy of Buncombe County Schools Communications Department

So, she transferred from community college to UNC Asheville to get a degree in math and gain her teacher's licensure through the Education Department.

“I really like the way it was mostly focusing on getting a math degree with the licensure part added on to it as opposed to education focus with math on the side. In case teaching didn't work out, I wanted to have my math degree to fall back on. That was part of why I chose UNC Asheville,” Wright said. “It's also small, and I do better within a smaller school, so it's perfect.”

Wright said the education department allowed her to observe real classes and provided the opportunity to narrow her field of interest.

“I observed one high school class my very first semester at UNC Asheville and I was like, I don't love this. Then the next semester I did all the middle school stuff: I was an AVID tutor, I took the middle school education class, all of my observation hours were at a middle school. That's where I was like, I love this. This is what I want to do,” Wright said.

Even prior to student-teaching, students in the licensure program get intensive hands-on experience in small classroom settings. Wright said EDUC 435 Mathematics Teaching Methods, the last class she took before student-teaching, still helps her in her teaching today.

“It was so great because there were five of us, total, in class and all we did was bring lesson plans, teach lessons, and get feedback. That class is the one that gave me confidence when it came to actually going into the classroom and teaching with actual students,” Wright said.

“I learned how to really make good lessons, how to teach things and the feedback I got during that class was fantastic.”

She even reached out to Evan Couzo, associate professor of atmospheric sciences who taught several of her education classes, after receiving her award to thank him for his influence.

“He was fantastic, absolutely amazing,” Wright said. “We would record videos of us teaching and he would give us input on the lessons but also throw in little tidbits about classroom management and how to kind of handle some of those behaviors. I learned a ton from that.”

After deciding on middle school math, Wright completed student teaching at Erwin Middle, in the same role where she works today: seventh grade math.

“I didn't really want to teach at any other school. I didn't apply anywhere else the entire time I was student teaching because the principal said ‘We're gonna find a way to get you here,’” Wright said. “I had really good relationships with the other staff and people here. I'd already built these great connections. I didn't want to go anywhere else.”

Wright said going right into the same environment where she got her learning experience made the transition easier, but that they’ve still had a tough year.

Students are still recovering from the setbacks caused by Covid-19 shut-downs during formative years of their education. Wright said many are still struggling with foundational skills.

With math in particular, Wright said one of the biggest challenges is fighting their perception that they just can’t do math.

“I had one kid last year that started the year and she's like ‘I hate math, I do, I can't do it,’ and by the end of the year she was like ‘Ms. Wright, remember when you told me that I could do math? Well, I believe you now,’” Wright said.

“It's not a subject that everybody loves and it's a subject a lot of people just assume they can't do, especially middle school age children. So that's my big thing: you may not leave my classroom knowing absolutely everything about seventh grade math, but if you can believe in yourself a little bit more, I feel like I've accomplished what I've set out to do.”

“ You may not leave my classroom knowing absolutely everything about seventh grade math, but if you can believe in yourself a little bit more, I feel like I’ve accomplished what I’ve set out to do.”

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